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Pak plans secured cable line with China to evade Indian surveillance

Worried over Indian surveillance, Pakistan is planning to lay a 135-km-long cross-border fibre optic cable to China as part of the ambitious CPEC project, a Pakistani daily said on Sunday.

The project is estimated to cost about 44 million dollars.

Pakistan is concerned that India may snoop into phone and e-mail chats as the existing service provider also has Indian firms as partners or shareholders.

The issue was flagged by Maj Gen Amir Azeem Bajwa, Pakistan army communication head, in January this year at a parliamentary committee meeting.

He reportedly informed that some incoming and outbound internet traffic landed in India before being routed to its destination, posing a security risk.

Islamabad, hence, wants to rout the internet traffic through China to minimise that risk, the Dawn reported.

The new direct line to China will provide a reliable and secure communication which is now being routed through Europe, the United States or India, it said.

It is also expected to boost internet penetration and speed, particularly in the Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan regions where the connectivity is poor.

Also, it will help reduce Pakistan’s dependence on undersea cables that proved to be costly, the report said, citing the Long Term Plan (LTP) government document prepared for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.

The 21-page document gives a detailed outline of the plan to be executed by 2030, the report added.